Sibling justice involvement and youth recidivism following first arrest

Youth recidivism following a first arrest remains difficult to predict, and research on family-level risk has focused disproportionately on parents rather than siblings. This study examined whether justice-system involvement within adolescents' sibling networks was associated with youth rearrest during the year following youths' first arrest.

We hypothesized that adolescents with justice-involved siblings would be more likely to be rearrested than adolescents without justice-involved siblings, with stronger associations for older siblings than younger siblings and for sibling incarceration than sibling arrest. We also compared threshold, dosage, and saturation models to evaluate how sibling justice-system exposure is best conceptualized.

Data came from 326 adolescents in the Crossroads Study. Sibling arrest and incarceration were examined using threshold (dichotomous), dosage (count), and saturation (proportion) operationalizations. Logistic regression models predicted any rearrest, and negative binomial regression models predicted rearrest counts.

Sibling incarceration showed the most consistent association with rearrest when operationalized as a threshold exposure: Youth with any incarcerated sibling had approximately twice the odds and expected count of rearrest. Sibling arrest was associated with rearrest primarily when measured cumulatively, through count and proportion indicators, rather than as a dichotomous exposure. Birth-order analyses suggested that associations were more evident for older than younger sibling exposure; younger sibling arrest and incarceration were not associated with rearrest in any specification.

Sibling justice-system exposure is a family-level developmental context whose implications depend on the type of contact, extent of exposure, and developmental position of the exposed sibling. Findings underscore the importance of considering sibling networks in family-centered responses following first arrest. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).